


Bizarre Enough For Me

by MollyC



Series: Not In Kansas [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 6.15 The French Mistake, M/M, Not really RPF
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-07
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2017-11-01 14:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/358037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MollyC/pseuds/MollyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I will deal with ghosts and angels and things trying to eat us, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna do the angst!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He wasn’t really in the mood for it, but frickin’ Jensen had declared his intention to do the stunt himself and it wasn’t like Jared was going to back off after that.  At least it wasn’t candy-glass this time; going through the fake window in the episode with Anna had gotten him a scratch that had smarted for days, because even candy-glass wasn’t a hundred percent safe.

Even so, Jared was feeling pretty good about the stunt, right up until he came down on hard ground with no fall-mat and slivers of _something_ under his hands.  He still managed to roll with the landing; one thing a show as active as _Supernatural_ taught you was how to fall.  (Though usually that was more Jensen’s schtick; Jared was the one who got to lean on things and pretend to be choking, because apparently the writers had decided that every creepy-crawly in the world had a thing for Sam’s neck.)

Beside him, Jensen was cursing, and Jared looked over to see his co-star cradling his left hand in his right.  “What the _hell_?” Jensen finally said to the world at large, looking up.  “Who set this—” and then he stopped, dead, mouth still open for the next word, eyes going wide in a way that made Jared very nervous.  He tore his gaze away from Jensen to look around the set, wondering suddenly why he couldn’t hear the crew, why no one was coming to help them up.

There were no walls.  There was no ceiling.  There were piles of derelict cars, and the wall of a house whose window they’d just crashed through, and on the other side of the wrecked window a man was peering out at them.  “Jim,” Jared said, “I didn’t know you were on set for this one.  Did you get new pages?”  He could hear his Texas accent creeping into his voice, a stress reaction he’d never been great at controlling—it was easy to be upset as Sam without it, since Sam wasn't _from_ Texas, but in his own person it came out.

“What the hell are you talkin’ about?” Jim asked, and Jared was suddenly unsure; that was Jim’s Bobby voice, not his real one.  “You two idjits wanna explain what you did to my damn window?”

“Not their fault,” another voice said.  Jim turned to look at the speaker, and Jared’s eyes followed.  There was Sebastian, in full costume and all of Balthazar’s smarmy glory.  Jared was _positive_ he hadn’t been standing there a second ago.  “Now, children, I’ve led him off and I think he’s gone to talk to his boss, but it would probably be prudent to vacate the premises.”

Jim—or not Jim—sputtered something about vacating his own damn house, and that was when Jensen decided to get back into the swing of the conversation.  “This can _not_ be what it looks like,” he said, even as he started tentatively getting to his feet.  Jared had heard that particular tone from Jensen on exactly one other occasion; it was the one in which Jen had said _Is she OK?_ and then _Is she gonna be OK?_   That was apparently Jen’s panic voice, and Jared was suddenly scared out of his fucking mind.

“If it’s not, I’m crazy too,” he said, amazed at himself for getting the words out calmly.  The entire world seemed a step away, and he had a strong suspicion this was shock.  Sebastian, who was probably not actually Sebastian, looked back and forth between them with scorn he wasn’t even trying to conceal, and drawled, “Right.  I’d ask who’s the brains in this version of the operation, but I have a feeling it doesn’t matter.”  He clapped his hands briskly.  “Let’s all get our things, shall we?  Time for a little trip.”

“Yeah, hold your horses,” not-Jim said.  “First you’re all gonna tell me what you know that I don’t.  Sam.  You want to chip in here?”

Jared realized not-Jim was looking at _him_.  _Bobby_ was looking at him.  “Oh crap,” he whispered.  His eyes met Jensen’s, and though they hadn’t talked past the bare minimum necessary for the show in nearly two years  Jared suddenly felt sure Jensen was the only person here who understood how he felt.  There was blood dripping from Jensen's fingers; he must've cut himself on the glass when they landed.

Because it was real glass, from a real window, from a real house in the middle of a real salvage yard in a real world in which they were Sam and Dean Winchester and Jared needed to sit down.  So he did.  The world went gray around the edges.  He could hear people talking, but the voices were weird and echoey and didn't have any actual words in them.

That lasted until someone slapped him.  Hard, but it was an open-hand slap, not a punch, and the physical shock of it dragged him out of the urge to sit there and rock with his arms wrapped around his knees.  He blinked to discover it was Bobby (Bobby!) who'd hit him.  Jensen was watching him with an expression that looked like concern for a moment, until it slid back into Jensen's usual bored indifference.  “I get that you ain't from here, boy,” Bobby said, as Jared focused on him, “but we ain't got time for this.”

“Yeah,” Jared said, and clamped down on the panic that was still trying to claw at him.  He could do this.  He'd just...he'd just be _Sam_ for a while.  He was Sam half the time he was awake anyway.  “Yeah, OK.  Are we going, or hiding?”

“Going,” Sebastian-no-Balthazar said.  “You've time to pack, I _think_ , but we really shouldn't press our luck.”


	2. Chapter 2

Jensen, the idiot, actually tried to protest when they didn't take the _car_.  Finally Jared snapped, “If you screw it up you know Dean will find a way to kill you,” and Jensen subsided.  Instead, Balthazar had grabbed their hands and the world had swung sickeningly sideways and they'd been somewhere else.

Specifically, a motel.  A crappy, side-of-the-road motel with inadequate water pressure, worrying stains on the bedding, and probably cockroaches.  It was familiar, except insofar as it had a ceiling and none of the walls were designed to be moveable.

Jared sat on one of the beds and tried to get a grip on the feeling that if he went out the door he'd be on the soundstage.  Balthazar had spent about thirty seconds making sure they knew how to draw the angel-banishing sigil (and healing Jensen's hand, sort of as an afterthought) and then simply left; Jensen had been literally in the middle of a sentence.

“That really is annoying,” Jensen had said, and Jared had nodded fervently.  Bobby was in the next room, because clearly Sam-and-Dean had one room and anyone else had another.  Never mind that they weren't actually Sam-and-Dean; Jared was sticking with the be-Sam plan, and it was sort of working.

They’d stared at each other for a few minutes, and then Jensen had announced he was going to take a shower.  Jared had Sam's laptop.  It was password protected, but the second one he'd tried had logged him in, which was scary because it was a password Jared had made up.  Thought he'd made up.  He did a lot of little character details like that, thinking of what password Sam would use on his laptop or what kind of soft drinks he liked or what movies he watched when he was depressed.  It helped him get into Sam's head.

 _I'm in it now_ , he thought, and if there was a slightly hysterical edge in there he wasn't going to take any notice.  He was doing research, because that was his job, right?  Sam did the research.

There were people named Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles and Genevieve Cortese here, all right, and they were actors.  They resembled him and Jen and Ginny, in a generic way, but not close enough to be mistaken for each other in anything other than really bad lighting.  Jensen-here was on _Doctor Sexy_ , had been since a guest spot as the patient of the week in Season 1.  Jared remembered that spot, and remembered Jen turning down the offer of a return because they'd just found out _Supernatural_ had been renewed for its second season.  Jared was obscurely comforted to discover that the Jared and Ginny here were married; they'd met filming the seventh season of _Firefly_ (She’d been a regular, Jared a recurring character).

Meanwhile, web searches for “Supernatural Dean Sam” had, sure enough, gotten him a book series.  It went up to the end of Season 5.  Apparently the author (Chuck Shurley, yes, _nom de plume_ Carver Edlund) had mysteriously vanished not long after finishing the last book.  Jared had a feeling he knew what the writer'd been wearing when he did it, too.

That was about as far as he got before he heard Jen's voice from the bathroom, a startled shout that made him push the laptop off his folded legs and stand.  “Jensen?” he called, loud to be heard over the shower.  After a second, Jensen called back, “Yeah.  I'm OK, just...hold on a second, I'll show you.”  The water shut off, and there were several seconds of Jensen puttering around in the incredibly annoying way Jared remembered from when they'd shared an apartment.

Finally Jensen opened the bathroom door and stood there, clad in Dean's jeans but shirtless.  He had the anti-possession tattoo.  He also had _scars_ , scars Jared knew Jen had never earned (you live with a guy, you see him naked sometimes).  And over Jensen's left shoulder, which Jared thought he should probably think of as _Dean's_ left shoulder, was the handprint.  It was clearly well-healed, but just as clearly distinct from the rest of the skin.

Jen looked a shade or two paler than usual.  Jared met his eyes and wasn't at all sure he disagreed with the feeling.

“There are angels here, Jay,” Jensen said quietly, gesturing at the print.  “I mean, I'm in the body of a guy who went to _Hell_ , literal Hell.  _You're_ in the body of a guy who went to Hell.  What the fuck would happen to us if we died here?”

Jared had a thought, and crooked his arm around to his back to feel along the spine.  And sure enough, there was a mass of scar tissue just above the lumbar vertebrae that made him shudder.  That was from when Sam had died.

The first time, anyway.

“So we don't die,” Jared said, trying for the kind of nonchalance Sam would have used.

Jensen visibly bit back a retort and closed his eyes briefly.  “Could you not do that?” he asked after a second.  “Yes, OK, I got enthusiastic about the Impala, but I don't know if method acting is going to help here.”

“It's this or I go sit in the corner in the fetal position, man,” Jared said sincerely.  “You cope your way, I'll cope mine.”  He picked up the laptop again.  “Anyway we knew there were angels.  Balthazar even teleported us.”  He got the name out without stumbling over it, which he was kind of proud of.

“Not quite the same,” Jensen said, and the thing was Jared knew what he meant.  Jensen stalked over to Dean's duffel bag, moving like he was offended, and yeah, OK, Jared could get that too; this whole thing was just too _weird_.  He was still half-convinced he was going to wake up and find out Misha had spiked his drink or something, but this was a bit much even for a Collins prank.  Jensen pulled a t-shirt out of the bag and shrugged into it, yanked out a flannel overshirt and donned it too with the air of a man doing what’s expected of him.

“It must be weird as hell for them,” Jensen said.  “I mean, nothing to fight, right?  No vampires or ghosts or angels or demons.  Nothing to do but—whoa, Jared, you OK?”

“Ginny,” Jared said faintly.  “What happens if Dean sees Ginny?”  Jensen looked puzzled for a second, and then got it.  He made a lunge and caught the computer just before it slid entirely out of Jared’s grip, saying intently, “No.  No, Jay, it’ll be OK.  She never comes to the set when we’re filming, by the time they see her they’ll know the deal.  If Dean sees her at all.  Come on, it’s not like I hang out at your place.”  _Anymore_ , he didn’t say, and he actually looked a little unhappy about it.

Jared knew it was unfair, but it was easier to be angry than scared, so he snapped, “Yeah, and whose fault is that?”   Jensen’s face shut down and he let the laptop fall to the bed.

“Oh, I dunno,” he said, almost casually.  “That skank you married, maybe?”

“Jesus, Jensen,” Jared said, letting his voice climb.  (Sam tended to get quiet when he was mad.  Jared didn’t.)  “You’re the one complaining about method acting?  Here’s a hint: you don’t have to hate Ginny just because she _played a character_ that _Dean_ didn’t like.”  
  


“You—” Jensen snapped his mouth shut on whatever epithet he’d been about to throw and breathed out hard.  After a second he said calmly, “I’m gonna go see if there’s somewhere I can get food.  I’ll be back.”

Jared watched his retreating back and said nothing.  If Jensen wanted to run away, far be it from him to try and stop him.

* * *

As three hours started to creep closer to four, Jared was forced to admit he was starting to worry.  Yes, Jensen liked to flounce off instead of having real arguments, but he didn't stay away longer than an hour, two at the outside.  Jared sat on the bed, pretending to read some of Sam's weirder bookmarked pages but really arguing with himself about when he was going to go tell Bobby something was wrong.  So when Sam's phone shrilled in his pocket, he jumped.  It took him three rings to scramble the thing out—it was bare-bones, too, which at least made it easy to identify the answer button—and he sighed in relief when the screen lit up with _Dean._

“Where the hell—” he started, but Jensen overrode him.

“Hey, Sammy,” he said easily, in full Dean mode, all traces of his natural voice hidden under Winchester.  “Just wanted to let you know you shouldn't wait up.”  Specifically, lascivious Winchester.

It _was_ Dean's style, but Jared couldn't picture Jensen falling into the role that completely, which meant... 

“ _Sam_ , Dean,” Jared said, with just the right note of peevishness.  “If you're gonna tell me about your booty calls you can at least call me Sam.”

“Whatever,” Jensen said.  The tone was Dean-rolling-his-eyes-at-Sam's-prudishness.  “See if I try'n keep you from worrying next time.”

“Only you could find a hookup in this place.”

“What can I say?  It's a funky town,” Jensen threw back.  And if Jared wasn't mistaken, that was Sam-and-Dean code for _Mayday, mayday._   “Don't even bother with the bar, it sucks and I found the only good one in the place.”

“Yeah, sure,” Jared grumbled around the sudden fear in his throat.  “Just get back here in time to check out in the morning, I'm not packing the car alone.”

“Tell you what, if I'm not back by dawn you can leave without me.”

“Dean.”

“Seeya in the morning,” Jensen sing-songed, and hung up.

“Crap,” Jared muttered.  “Crap, crap, crap, and while I'm at it _fuck_.”  He carefully put Sam’s phone away, set the laptop aside, and snagged his key on the way next door.

It didn't take much knocking to get Bobby's attention, though the man didn't look happy when he opened his door.  “What?” he demanded.  Jared waited a second, but Bobby made no move to step back.  Jared sighed and drew himself up to his full height—something Sam basically never did, at least not when he had his soul.  “Can I come in?” he asked pointedly.  Bobby looked perturbed— _more_ perturbed—but reluctantly stood to the side.

As soon as the door was closed behind him, Jared said, “Jensen and I had a fight almost four hours ago and he walked out.  Usually when this kind of thing happens he comes back in an hour, maybe two.  And I just got a call from him calling me 'Sam'.”

Bobby's eyes widened a bit.  “You tellin' me he managed to get himself into trouble?”

“He said 'funky town',” Jared said, and then, when Bobby looked confused, “It's a code Sam and Dean have—means yeah, he's in some kind of trouble.”

Bobby rolled his eyes.  “You get how creepy it is that you know all this stuff, right?” he grumbled.  “OK, tell me everything he said.”  Jared gave him a quick recap of the conversation.  When he was finished Bobby looked grave. 

“That sounds to me like some kind of deadline,” he said.

“Yeah,” Jared agreed.  “But at least we know where to start.  He got nabbed from the bar, or at least that's where he met whatever's got him.”

“Sounded to me like he was tryin' to tell us not to bother with the bar,” Bobby said.

“Nah,” Jared said confidently.  “He just needed to mention it somehow, trust me.”

“Uh-huh,” said Bobby, and then paused for a second.  “You two sleepin' together?” he asked bluntly.

Jared gaped at him and then half-yelled, “No!”  Bobby regarded him skeptically and Jared felt himself flushing.  “We shared an apartment back before the show took off.  We were close, OK?  Then I got engaged and moved out.”  _And then I got married and Jensen turned into a total asshole_ , he didn't say.  Something of it must have shown on his face, because Bobby's eyebrows climbed, but the older man seemed to sense that it wasn't a good topic.  “OK, fine.  I'm kinda surprised you ain't tryin' to call the cops, though.”

“I'm an actor, not a damn fool,” Jared snapped.  There wasn't a chance of controlling his accent and he didn't even try.  “Been on this show goin' on six years now, I know how well it goes for these two when they talk to the law.”

“Huh,” Bobby said.  “OK, well, maybe we should go check out that bar, then.”


	3. Chapter 3

It was well after dark and the bar’s business was in full swing by the time Bobby and Jared settled onto stools. Jared ordered a beer and drank it; when he waved the bartender over, he held out one of Dean’s fake IDs (with his thumb carefully over the name). “I’ll take another,” he said, purposefully letting his drawl creep into his voice—they had discovered they were in Arizona, of all places, and it seemed like he might get better results with that than Sam’s flat Midwestern. “And I was wonderin’ if you could tell me if you’ve seen my brother today?”

The bartender put her hand on his wrist to change the angle of the picture and leaned over a little more than she strictly had to. “No, sorry,” she said with a smile that Jared really liked (he was married, not _blind_ ). “But I only came on shift an hour or so ago. Jake was on earlier and he’s still here, just on his break, if you want to ask him when he gets back.”

“That’d be great,”Jared said, and smiled in return. If he wasn’t mistaken, the bartender was actually blushing a little as she turned away to get his beer, which he had to admit was gratifying. He made it a point not to flirt when Ginny was with him, and he didn’t go many places without her that weren’t work. It wasn’t like he and Jensen spent a lot of time in bars these days.

“You stay here and wait for the other guy to get off his break,” Bobby said. “I’ll ask around some.” Jared nodded and the hunter slid from his stool. A moment later the bartender set Jared’s second beer before him and leaned on the bar. The posture gave him a stellar view of her cleavage, and he caught himself staring just before it would have been really awkward for her to notice. “So how long are you in town?” she asked.

“Hard to say,” Jared replied. _Since it all depends on the world’s flakiest angel_ , he thought, and tried not to grimace. “Depends on how fast I can find my brother, I guess. He’s probably just out with someone, but he hasn’t called so I’m a little worried."

“Little brother, is he?” the bartender asked with another smile.

“No,” Jared said, and took another swig of his beer. “But we’re most of the family we have left, so we look out for each other.”

After that it was easy to swing into a modified version of Sam and Dean’s life stories. He’d been living Sam’s life—in 45-minute chunks, at least—for so long that it wasn’t hard to improvise when a question came up he didn’t know the answer to, and it was nice to think about Jensen _liking_ him again. Jared cordially loathed the stone-faced jerk who’d taken Jensen’s place, but he missed his friend like hell. As it was he had to settle for getting the occasional update from Misha, who had firmly, vocally refused to take sides—even when he and Jensen started sleeping together (which had been kind of a shock, as Jared had thought Jen was straight as…as a really straight thing).

Jared shook his head and looked down into his mug. It was only his fourth beer—and unlike Sam, Jared was not a lightweight—but he felt thick-headed and strange. The bartender was still flirting, though, so he couldn’t be too bad off. “I’m gonna, uh, hit the head,” Jared said, struggling with his uncooperative tongue. “Could I get a glass of water when I get back?”

“Sure thing, honey,” the bartender purred, and Jared nodded thankfully as he tried to get off the barstool without pitching onto his face. He was distantly alarmed, but most of his concentration was taken up with walking in a relatively straight line.

He bumped into a few people on the way to the men’s room, but no one got upset about it at least; he was sure he couldn’t handle a bar fight right now. When he got there he staggered to the sink and fumbled the cold water on. Splashing his face helped for a second, but only a second, and when Jared straightened the walls of the small room wavered sickeningly.

 _This is bad_ , he thought with perfect clarity, and then he passed out.

* * *

When he woke it was slowly, and he kind of wished he hadn’t. His head throbbed in time with his heartbeat and he felt moments from vomiting everything he’d ever eaten. He tried to roll out of his uncomfortable position, on his side with one arm caught under his body and twisted behind him, and succeeded only in determining that his hands were stuck behind his back somehow.

"Jay! Jay, are you awake?” someone whispered urgently, and Jared’s stomach twisted horribly. That was Jensen’s voice, which meant he was in deep, deep shit.

"Yeah,” he said, forcing the word to come out intelligible, and opened his eyes. Jensen sat against a concrete wall; his hands were behind his back and Jared suspected they were tied there—or cuffed; now that he concentrated he was pretty sure his were cuffed. Jared looked around, focusing past his headache. They were in a basement—a finished basement, even, with a washer and dryer tucked in the corner and linoleum on the floor, but there were eyebolts in the walls that their cuffs were chained to. “It was the bartender, wasn't it?” Jared said. “She spiked my drink.”

“That's what I was figuring. Jay, we are in serious trouble here,” Jensen replied.

Jared started to struggle upright, a difficult proposition with his hands where they were, and said, “I kinda worked that out.” He was trying for dry and sarcastic, but he was pretty sure he was mostly managing scared.

“Not what I meant,”Jensen said. “They think we're Dean and Sam. Like, they _met_ Dean and Sam, and have reason to not like them.”

Jared let his head fall back against the wall and closed his eyes again, which at least made the nausea better. “Do you recognize them?” Hell, Bobby looked like Jim, they looked like themselves, it was possible Jensen knew these guys from the short list of enemies Dean and Sam hadn't killed.

“No," Jensen said. He sounded pretty good, almost casual. Jared was a little impressed. “From what they said, 'we' ran into them about four years ago.”

“What's that, mid-season two?” Jared asked, trying to think, but Jensen shook his head.

“Remember they've had an extra year here while Dean was playing house,” he said. “Mid-three, the deal year.”

“During the writers' strike,” Jared said glumly. Season three had been only two-thirds the length of a regular season because of that. “So not only won't we recognize them, they could be something we've never even heard of.” There was something poking him in the back, caught up in the hem of his rucked-up shirt.

“Yep,” Jensen agreed, and silence fell for a moment. Then, “Did they get Bobby?”

“I don't think so. They might not even have known he was with me. Last I saw him he was asking around in the bar. I was waiting for the guy who supposedly saw you to get off break. Bet he doesn't even exist.”

“Probably not. Well, maybe Bobby'll get here in time.” Jensen didn't sound optimistic. “Damn, Jay. I can't believe you came after me. I tried to warn you off.”

Jared rolled his head to stare at Jensen and said, “Are you kidding? Seriously, Jensen, you're a dick but that doesn't mean I want you _dead_.”

“Better just me than both of us,” Jensen said, as if that were a completely reasonable position to take.

Jared shifted again, trying to figure out what the hell was poking him. “You're not the big brother,” he said. “Not your job to protect me.” 

“Forgive me for trying to keep your gigantic ass out of the fire,” Jensen said peevishly.

“Oh, fuck you,” Jared said. He felt too crappy to even try for tact. “Don't pretend you give a damn. You haven't in years.”

“Are you kidding me?” Jensen sounded pissed, but Jared was surprised to realize he also sounded hurt. “Like you didn't make it perfectly clear you didn't want me around anymore.”

Jared twisted his fingers in his shirt, trying to find the irritating thing so he could rip it out. “Because you started treating Ginny like a leper. I swear it was like you decided she really was Ruby. All of a sudden you couldn't even be in the same room, and I don't know what your problem is but she's my _wife_.” Two fingers grabbed it, something metal, and he yanked, tearing a few stitches, and it fell from his tenuous grip.

“The _fuck_ you don't know—” Jensen shouted, but then the thing that had been in Jared's shirt hit the floor with a _clink_ , and their eyes fastened on it simultaneously.

It was a handcuff key.

Apparently, Sam kept handcuff keys sewn into his shirts.

They looked at each other, then back at the key. And then, at the top of the steps that led down into their basement, a door opened. Jared threw himself onto his side again, scrabbling for the key, and pulled it into his hand as legs became visible, descending.


	4. Chapter 4

They were some pretty nice legs.  Jared could tell because they were wearing tights and a thigh-length tunic top.  The rest of the person came into view, and he shut his eyes for a second and bounced the side of his head softly against the floor.  It was the bartender.  She was still cute as hell, but the effect was kind of ruined by her narrowed eyes.

“I never thought I’d see you two again, after you killed my sister,” she said, and sat casually on the cellar step.

In the midst of struggling to sit upright, Jared threw a glance at Jensen, who shook his head a tiny bit.  Wasn’t kicking loose anything in his memory either, then.  The bartender, who Jared supposed he should start thinking of as their captor, caught the byplay and when she spoke again her voice was noticeably colder.  “Oh, right.  Why should you bother to remember?  She was just a _monster_.”

Jared winced.  Before he could come up with a reply, Jensen said, “Look, I’m...we aren’t who you think we are.”  She snorted.  “No, really,” Jensen persisted, sitting up straight.  “You think we’re the Winchesters, but we’re not.  We’re really not.  The reason we don’t remember you or your sister is because we’ve never met you.”

The bartender gave him a supremely unimpressed look.  “Really, that’s what you’re going with?  ‘We just happen to look exactly like the guys who killed your sister, we aren’t really them.’”  She leaned forward, her hands flat on her knees, and said brightly, “Or is it amnesia?  I always think amnesia storylines are fun.”

“Look, lady, do you think I’d be trying such a stupid-ass story if it wasn’t true?” Jensen demanded.  He undercut the effect just a little by slipping into Dean’s voice and Jared closed his eyes and sucked air through his teeth.

“Jen, uh…” Jared said, and Jensen shook his head.

“Yeah, sorry.  That’s what we’re going with because it’s true, OK?  We’re not the Winchesters.”

“And yet you know exactly who I think you are,” the bartender said.

“We’re _actors_ ,” Jared said.  “We play them.”  He didn’t try to put sincerity into his voice; it would come off fake.

“Actors,” she said.  “Actors.”  She stood up and crossed the few feet of distance to him, and wound her hand into the collar of his shirt.  She didn’t look strong enough to haul him to his knees, but she did it, and Jared could hear the cloth protesting at the strain.   _But I like this shirt_ , he thought inanely, as the bartender leaned down, her teeth bared.  He didn’t think it was his imagination that they looked sharper than they should have, and her eyes were washing over with white.  “So you were just acting when you killed her?  When you _ripped her guts out_?”

He didn’t see the blow coming, stunning and out of nowhere, and barely heard Jensen barking, “Leave him alone!”

The bartender ignored it and snarled, “Well let’s see how you like acting your death scenes in the morning!”  She didn’t so much let him go as shove him down, and Jared just went with it, clutching the handcuff key for what he suspected might actually be dear life.

He was too busy hurting to pay attention to the sound of her leaving, up the stairs again under Jensen saying, “Jay, Jay are you all right?  Jay!”  The door at the top of the steps slammed.  Jared groaned and rolled to his side.

“Jay?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, how does Sam do this all the time?” Jared muttered.  His stomach roiled and swung and he desperately hoped he wasn’t going to be sick because smelling like puke till he could get back to Sam’s duffel bag would just be the cherry on top of this shit sundae.

Jensen didn’t say anything for a second, and Jared pried his eyes open.  Jensen looked worried.

“Maybe actors wasn’t the way to go,” Jared said.

Jensen smiled a ghost of a smile.  “You think?”

“OK, I’m just gonna...I need a sec because if I drop this key we’re so screwed,” Jared said.

“Yeah,” Jensen said.  “It can’t be that late yet, we have a little time.”

Jared nodded and closed his eyes again and started counting to 300, doing the long yoga breaths Misha had taught him.  By 250 he felt better but he finished the count.

He didn’t really want to try to sit up again but a little bit of experimentation demonstrated that he needed more mobility than having one arm trapped against the floor could provide, so Jared worked his way up to sitting again.  An awkward interval ensued, during which he cursed never having gone through an escape artist phase as a kid and Jensen occasionally made comments he clearly thought were helpful, but finally Jared got the key into the lock and turned it.  The bracelet popped open and he yanked his hand free.  His shoulders were horrifically stiff, unsurprisingly, which was something they never really showed on screen.  A minute later they were both loose and they took a minute to stretch.

Though finished, the basement was one largish room except for a door that, when opened, proved to lead to a utility closet that would have been uncomfortably cramped to stand in with the door closed.  There were high, small painted-over windows at what Jared assumed was ground level, and he turned to see Jensen looking at the stairs with a longing expression.

“We can’t go up that way,” Jared said, trying for firm.  “For all we know she’s sitting up there watching the door.”

Jensen grimaced.  “I know, but I’m not sure either of us can make it out those windows.”

“If the other choice is whatever she’s got planned, I’ll make it,” Jared said, though he had his doubts too.

The one stroke of luck in the whole situation was that their captor had forgotten to remove the toolbox that sat in the back corner of the utility closet, or perhaps she’d been confident of the ability of the handcuffs to hold them—which, Jared had to admit, would have been a valid assumption if they hadn’t been wearing the Winchesters’ clothes.  The toolbox yielded screwdrivers, a hammer, and one of those flat, flimsy paint scrapers that came in very handy once Jensen knocked the hinge pins out of one of the windows.

Taking the whole window out was quieter, made more space, and left no interesting shards of glass in the frame to worry about, but it took longer; Jared could see Jensen getting tenser with every passing minute and he knew perfectly well that he wasn’t doing any better.

Finally they were standing there looking at the empty window frame and the ratty armchair they’d positioned beneath it.

“This is gonna suck,” Jensen said, stripping off his jacket—Jared and Misha had dubbed it Dean’s Badass Coat because it was the one Costume tended to put on him when he was being particularly effective—and overshirt.  Jared could see the sense in reducing bulk, but he had a feeling they were both going to lose skin.

They put their extra shirts and the loose window outside and then Jensen said, “OK, you first” at the same moment Jared started, “You should go…”

They both stopped and stared.  Jensen recovered first.  “After you, Alphonse,” he said, his tight tone at odds with the jocular words.

“Don’t be stupid,” Jared said.  “You first.”

“Jay—”

“I’m more likely to get stuck and we both know it,” Jared persisted, trying not to get mad.

“Jared.”

“Damn it, Jen, now is not the time to get all size-queen.”

“You think I don’t know you and Genevieve are trying to have a kid?” Jensen said, his voice barely controlled.

“Yeah, because Misha won’t be fucking devastated if you get your dumb ass killed,” Jared retorted.  “You.  Go.  First.”

Jensen stared at him for a few seconds longer, the muscle in his jaw ticking like it only ever did when he was too pissed to talk, and finally said, “Fine,” and turned to the window.  

Instead of trying to go head-first Jensen stuck one hand out, which Jared saw the logic of immediately; both of them were likely to find their shoulders to be the literal sticking point and this way Jen’s would be at a slant.  Of course it also meant that he only had one hand outside to work with.  It was awkward and slow, not helped by the fact that they didn’t dare talk very loud, and at one point Jensen got hung up for most of a minute, unable to get any good purchase; finally Jared grabbed him by the knees and pushed.  Once his second arm scraped through the empty frame, though, Jensen pulled his legs outside quickly.  There was a second of rearranging and then his pale face appeared in the window.  “OK, go for it,” he said.  “I’ll pull.”

Jared led with a hand too, and immediately realized it wasn’t going to help much, but there wasn’t anything else to do so he kept going until he stuck for the first time.

“I never thought I’d regret bulking up for this season,” he said as the pressure started to get painful.

“Yeah, I haven’t had this much fun since we filmed digging out of the grave,” Jensen said lightly.  It was impressively convincing.  “Come on, whatcha waiting for?”

“I think one of my shirt buttons is catching.”

Jensen nodded and crammed himself down into the space next to the siding. “Which?”

“Left pocket,” Jared said.  His body blocked all the light from the basement itself, so they were working with a trickle from around the side, probably a porch light, and the waning quarter moon—which was, he noted uneasily, well up.

Jensen wormed his hand in between the damp ground and Jared’s body to where the pocket was.  After a second of weird-feeling movement, the button popped past the frame.  That got him another inch or so of progress before he stuck again.

“What is is this time?”

Jared looked up and met Jen’s eyes as well as he could.  “I think I’m just too big.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Jensen said.  

“Jen—man, it’s past midnight already.  You need to start running.”

“Shut up and push, asshole,” Jensen said.

“Jensen,” Jared started.

“I’m not leaving. You think Dean'll fuck me up if I screw up his car, imagine what he'll do if I screw up his brother.  So push, or we both die, got it?”

Jared blinked.  Jensen stared at him, his jaw set.  

“Grab my collar and pull,” Jared said, and set his feet as well as he could on the armchair.  As Jensen moved to get a hold, he flattened his own hand on the wall next to the window.  “OK, on three.”

Jensen had a bad hold.  Jared had bad leverage against the wall, and his feet left the armchair at exactly the point where the extra help would have been really useful.  The edges of the frame dug into him painfully and there was one point where he was sure, absolutely _sure_ that he was stuck, he wasn’t going anywhere, the bartender was going to have to slit his throat as he lay there trapped.  And then the widest part of his ribcage scraped through and he was free.  Jared dragged himself away from the house and collapsed onto his back, breathing heavily because he _could_ and rubbing at the probably-permanent impression that a button had left on his sternum.  Near his feet he could hear Jensen messing around with the window and putting Dean’s overshirt and jacket back on.

“Jesus,” Jared said to the sky.

“Nope, just a local field rep,” Jensen said, and at the old joke—and the relief in his voice—Jared had to smother wild laughter with both hands.  Jensen made the mistake of catching his eye and then he was laughing too.  They sat there for a couple of minutes, choking on the noise, until Jared got enough of a handle on himself to say, “OK, up, we have to get moving.”

Fortunately all the windows facing the side of the house they’d broken out on were dark.  They headed straight away for about fifty yards before starting to circle to find the driveway, which led to two-lane blacktop.

“Any clue which way to town?” Jared asked.

“I’m gonna go with heading for the lights we can see,” Jensen answered dryly, and Jared turned his head to see Jen was right; the house was up a long, shallow slope from what sure looked like a town.  It looked like a really long walk, but what else did they have to do with their time?  There was a ditch along the road for concealment if they heard a car behind them, so they walked on the pavement, Jensen with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets because it was chilly in the desert at night.

Maybe fifteen minutes after they started walking, Jared stopped in his tracks.  Caught by surprise, Jensen took another two steps before he stopped and turned.

“What, Jay?  We are not going back, I don’t care what you dropped.”

“It didn’t even occur to me to pray to Castiel,” Jared said, and almost broke up laughing again at the expression of complete amazement that covered Jensen’s face.

**Author's Note:**

> Title source: http://www.lyricstime.com/blue-oyster-cult-real-world-lyrics.html


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